Plan panel's different tune on land reforms

One of the UPA government's major promises would remain unfulfilled if the Planning Commission has its way.

advertisement

A M Jigeesh

New Delhi

July 26, 2010

UPDATED: July 26, 2010 09:05 IST

One of the UPA government's major promises would remain unfulfilled if the Planning Commission has its way.

Six years since the Manmohan Singh government declared that landless families will be endowed with land through implementation of land ceiling and redistribution, the Planning Commission wants to now shift its focus from land distribution.

The commission, commenting on the recommendations made by the 'committee on State Agrarian Relations and the Unfinished Task in Land Reforms', said the land ceiling limits cannot be implemented with a "retrospective effect". The land reforms committee report suggested a curb on land holding and set a new limit for land ceiling.

It had also suggested amendments to the SEZ Act, the Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation Acts and the Benami Transactions Prohibition Act. This was to ensure that the landless farmers were getting a share of the surplus land.

The Prime Minister's Office had forwarded the land reforms committee's recommendations to the Planning Commission.

The Planning Commission, however, has shown its reluctance to accept the committee's suggestions. The commission said that it needed more clarifications on the issue.

"The land ceiling limits cannot be implemented with retrospective effect. There is no explanation for what is the rationale of recommending the new limit of five to 10 acres in irrigated land and 10 to 15 acres for non-irrigated land throughout the country. It does not indicate whether it is based on any sustainable analysis,"the commission wrote to the PMO.

The commission disagreed with the suggestion that the ceiling suggestions.

that on cannot retrospective explanation of of land irrigated country.

whether sustainable wrote disagreed ceiling exemption on plantation, orchards and other special categories of land use should be stopped. "This will lead to a switchover to other crops and may be counterproductive,"the letter said.

On amending the Benami Transactions Prohibition Act, the commission said the state governments and legal departments should be taken into confidence.

The land reforms committee, in its report, had noted that reforms played an important role in accelerating growth and reducing poverty. The report said that lack of access to land has condemned millions into endemic and chronic poverty, thereby seriously limiting the possibility of upward mobility for future generations.

"The country will never be able to achieve a structural end to rural poverty without land reforms," the committee's report said.

The report also suggested that exemption to religious, educational, charitable and industrial organisations should be discontinued.

"Religious institutions should be allowed one unit of 15 acres," the report had said.

But, the Planning Commission has disapproved this suggestion as well. "The land ceiling cannot be uniform for all religious institutions in all the states,"it said.

There was agreement on one issue, though. The commission agreed with the land reforms committee's suggestion that there should be fast-track courts to deal with land cases.